"The Black Slipper" 1967

The catfight between Joey Heatherton and Edy Williams was a real hoot, but it was an obvious clue to who the real culprit was.

My God, they didn't make that up for "Feud"?

This beats TROG.

A few of those hot male backup dancers were also in West Side Story and Funny Face. damn IMDB doesn't have all their names listed. I love a hot chorus boy!

IMDb doesn't seem to have a page for this movie

I know, it's criminal! And such a forgotten classic!

I heard that Jayne Mansfield was set to star, then she got into that whole decapitating car accident thing and had to pull out of the picture, so it went to Van Doren. Not the first time Mamie took on a role originally slated for her rival.

R4, Sadly, "The Black Slipper" didn't have George Chakiris, but it did have John Brascia, who was a little older, but just as fun to look at.

I can't find the movie "The Black Slipper" anywhere on the internet and I've never heard of it. Does it go by another name?

There's not a single film on imdb called "The Black Slipper."

There is no such movie.

R-0, its European release was called "Mondo Lesbiana" except in Italy, where the title translated as "Mamie's Big Tits Go to Prison."

David Merrill had it optioned for a while for a potential Broadway musical. Comden and Green were going to write the lyrics to Julie Styne's music, but when Gwen Verdon turned it down it fell apart.

When I was in college I spent a semester in France. The local theater in town ran the movie for a while as its midnight show. It was called "La Danse de la Mort" or something like that, and it was dubbed in French (not subtitles). Watching it dubbed in French made it even campier!

I remember seeing this in the theater in Shanghai ca 1970. The Chinese title translated to "Pretty Dance Teacher Accused of Murder" (not very catchy). It was a pretty big deal because Western movies were very rare at the time.

The remake, with its titled changed to "The Turning Point," is much more well-known today.

I love the posts about the foreign versions! This is one of my favorite camp classic movies of all time. A friend of mine once had the German version of the movie poster hanging in his apartment. I don't remember the German title, but my friend said that it translated into "Blood on the Dancer". Typical German angst LOL.

When I saw it in Marseilles, it was called "Le Pantoufle Noir."

The closing song was a bit too jazzy for my taste, but it was nice to hear Edie Gormé getting some work.

Helen Lawson would have finally gotten her Oscar if she had just accepted this role. If her daughter hadn't gotten cancer and needed Helen's care, it would have been such a great movie!

R18, [italic]La[/italic] Pantoufle Noir

Lucille Ball was offered the lead but Gary Morton talked her out of it.

I happened to be in Roma in 1968 working on dubbing for yet another gladiator movie, and saw it as "Che Cagna Può Ballare", which I did not work on, but got to attend the Roman premiere. It was a tour de force! The patrons feted the stars and Edy Williams danced barefoot at the after-party. Truly a night to remember.

R19, are you sure that was Eydie Gormé? I always thought it was Keely Smith.

It was the second on a double bill with Gigi at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge in 1988 when I first saw it. Came for Gigi, but wound up LOVING BlaSlip.

The Juliet Prowse/Bobby Banas number in the department store lobby impressed the hell outta me.

Apologies, R24. I was also pretty drunk as well by that time.

In a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment, look for a young Loni Anderson in the corps de ballet! And Gary Sandy plays the assistant to the choreographer (played by the inestimable Edward Everett Horton). What a coincidence!

Sadly, it was Horton's last film. He died in 1970.

I can't believe you guys! We're already at reply 29 and nobody has mentioned the gay porn version released in 1973, The Black Skipper.

R27, I believe you're mistaken. Mamie was the choreographer. Horton played the creepy production manager.

(21), La Pantoufle NoirE

R30, Horton was Mamie's mentor, who helped get her paroled. He was the choreographer for a new production and wanted Mamie to be the principal dancer. I believe Jonathan Harris played the creepy production manager who was a bit too affectionate with Mamie's angst-filled teenaged son, played by Jay North.

In Moscow, it was (in transliteration) "Krasnoyarskava Shchyubetyaboots"

The studio actually ran a few ads promoting Mamie for a Best Actress nomination.

Horton deserved a Supporting Actor nomination, if not for this performance then for "services rendered." It's believed that his appearance on "Batman" knocked him out of contention.

This movie would've been a gas if not for the tired psycho lesbian and depraved bisexual tropes. The chick-on-chick prison scenes were to be expected, but the big reveal involving Mamie's bisexual boyfriend/dance partner, played by Grover Dale, was just too much.

Fun fact: Susannah York, who plays Eugenie, the up-and-coming ingenue dancer who tries to seduce both Mamie and her boyfriend and is murdered by a jealous Joey Heatherton, went on to star in "The Killing of Sister George," directed by none other than Robert Aldrich, director of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?". Legend has it that Jameson, who was Aldrich's assistant for "Baby Jane," approached him for help in getting this film produced. Like Crawford, Aldrich declined to help. What a small world Hollywood is.

I was in Mexico at that time and, if I recall correctly, there it was called "La Chalupa Negra"

[quote]IMDb doesn't seem to have a page for this movie

Well, at least we'll always have Showgirls.

Will there be an all-black remake called "The White Slipper?" I think Lola Falana is available.

Lillian Gish as "Mamaw" was a revelation. Old girl did her own stunts too -- the scene where she went after Ruth Roman with the seam ripper in the prison sewing room was the stuff of legend.

In Canada it was called 'Aboot a Black Boot'.

If you watch closely, you can see a very young, very hunky Wilford Brimley in the big dream ballet sequence as "Faunlet #2."

I've heard that Mamie insisted on singing "Goin' Outta My Head" in the bar scene as a cute nod to Jayne Mansfield.

There's a rumor than one of Hollywood's biggest stars is in the background of the prison riot/orgy scene in disguise, supposedly a "just for kicks" appearance. Anyone know who it was?

Marjorie Main

Mamie's bra was Oscar-nommed for Best Supporting Actress.

That's not Susannah York, it's Judy Geeson.

The producers wanted Lulu for the theme song, but the best Brit they could get was Adrienne Posta. They wisely turned their attention back to the States.

Rod Taylor was originally considered for the Horton role. But he wasn't the best dancer.

Can you imagine that chest in those tight shirts?

R48, it was Helen Shapiro who sang the theme song, "Bars Around My Heart."

I wish the soundtrack LP would be rereleased on CD. Between Helen Shapuro's dazzling theme song, reprised by Mamie accompanying herself on guitar from her cell, Mamie's bar number, and Ruth Roman's throaty "Give Me a Gaggle of Gals" from the prison talent show, it was a dynamite album. Oh, and Edward Everett Horton's touching "I'm a Little Teapot, Short and Stout" just before he dies, never fails to make me misty eyed.

I bid on a bootleg VHS copy on eBay years ago, but stopped after $49.99. It was beyond my limited budget at the time.

Burt Ward was supposed to do this AND The Graduate, but they wouldn't let him out of his Batman contract. I can relate...

Fun fact: the famous black slipper used in this film is now prominently displayed on a shelf in Pia Zadora's home, right next to her Golden Globe. Saw it in a YouTube interview a year back. She said this movie was a big reason why she chose to follow her award-winning performance in "Butterfly" with "The Lonely Lady."

You know what? I'm starting to think maybe there isn't any movie called "The Black Slipper."

I loved Joan Rivers as Beebee the wisecracking seamstress. Whatever happened to her?

But there is, Blanche, there is.

A pearl-and-twinset-wearing Susan Richardson gave a gripping performance as Mamie's social-climbing teen daughter, Ila Faye, who heartlessly disowns her during a visit to the big house.

I read somewhere that Ray Agahayan (still despondent over the cancellation of the Judy Garland show) sucked the producer's cock in order to beat out Edith Head and Travilla for costumes on this film. True? Poor dear Ray.

Was there a rumored Broadway musical version in the works?

R59, I loved Ray's Carnaby Street meets Vegas Showgirl fashions, but if you ask me, Mamie looked a tad too plump and long-in-the-tooth to pull off the mod fashions.

Poor Pauline...the film's poor reception upon release nixed any chance of her directing any more films. Other than a couple of episodes of "Medical Center" and a few failed pilots, she rarely directed again. Too bad she didn't live long enough to see her film go on to such cult status. I heard Bigelow planned to mention Pauline in her Oscar acceptance speech, but forgot.

I love this movie. Who can forget new prison fish Mamie VD going toe-to-toe with the fabulous Liz Renay as the sapphic prison popsy, Big Lou?

[quote]The producers wanted Lulu for the theme song, but the best Brit they could get was Adrienne Posta. They wisely turned their attention back to the States.

Not wisely - they should have looked further in England.

Victoria Vetri made her big screen debut billed as "Angela Dorian" in the nude prison shower scene.

It has been brough to my attention that British chanteuse (and bad news buffet) Dorothy Squires recorded the theme song but it was rejected by the producers for having too much vibrato. She still performed the song in her live shows to no fanfare.

A friend just told me that The Black Slipper was essential viewing for Blake Chandler when she was a disenfranchised teen living with Dottie, her mother, in a dilapidated trailer in Central Ohio.

This film was originally to be a reuniting of myself with Felluci as director, but the producers wouldn't approve my Jean Louis wardrobe. "A lesbian prison warden would never dress that way," they said! "But lesbians are still women," I told them. Well, except the fat ones, but I didn't mention that. I almost relented, but when they wouldn't give my character one little bauble from Laykin et Cie, well, I ask you---what is an actress to do?

[quote]Mamie VD

Isn't it more PC to call her "Mamie STI" these days?

So this movie doesn't exist?

r70 No it doesn't, they think it's a laugh riot making up their own story line complete with casting and backstories. Sort of "Whatever Happened After 'Feud' Ended."

Well, I've been laughing my ass off, tears running down my face, so thank you to everybody else in this thread! I needed this!

My mother recalls seeing this movie LA CHANCLETA NEGRA as a child in Panama at Teatro Variedades. She became obsessed with it and resorted to petty crimes to be able to afford the admission for multiple viewings. She was finally arrested for trying to steal a lobby card from the theater. It was the one depicting Joey Heatherton's hair pulling melee with prison matron Liz Renay.

R71, is your new skin too tight? This thread *IS* a scream. Please go dilate on a Colton thread.

Miss Dionne Warwick has often stated how the director of "The Black Slipper" BEGGED her to lend her talents to the part of Masha. Thankfully for cinema history, she decided to do "Slaves" instead.

Wait, so who played Masha?

r74 My skin is flawless bitch. This thread *NOT* a scream. DL has and can do much better, if the thread title said what it was trying to do (fake scenario) about without losers like you trying to be funny it might have succeeded.

Dilate? If I saw your face, it would close up tighter than a drum.

Blink and you'll miss it -- 4 year Jodie Foster as Joey Heatherton's daughter. And in a baby doll dress!!

The film was banned in my home state Alabama due to it's risqué lesbian scenes (for the time).I remember my spinster aunt and her friends were so upset that they staged a protest in front of the theater, but that was quickly derailed when they noticed that at the hardware store right beside the theater there was a tool belt sale going on.

Don't forget Pamelyn Ferdin's oft-overlooked bravura performance as Mousey, the child killer who befirends Mamie in prison.

Connie Ford gave probably her most restrained performance ever as the ill-fated warden. And -- trivia! -- Mary Harris, lady-lovin' producer of Another World at the time, went to see this picture and was so moved by Connie's performance that she offered her the role of Ada Davis on Another World.

[quote]Wait, so who played Masha?

Vonetta McGee. It was her movie debut.

Gail Fisher wanted the part, but Gary Morton talked her into playing Peggy on Desilu's new series, "Mannix."

I think we can all tell who r77 is. Just ignore it and it'll go away.

[quote]Was there a rumored Broadway musical version in the works?

Yes,, r60. Per upthread, David Merrick was developing it for Gwen Verdon, who eventually she'd do a competing "gals in prison" tuner, "Chicago."

Julie Styne later used a couple of the songs in "Sugar."

Supposedly Nick Adams went full frontal for a scene where Mamie's young dancer lover has a conjugal visit, but the scene was cut, along with most of his role. Apparently it was his despair over being turned into a bit player that led to his suicide in 1968.

Audrey Hepburn's "blind Suzy" contact lens from "Wait Until Dark" were re-used for the hospital scene after MVD throws acid at her lesbian lover's new girlfriend, played winningly by Susan Gordon.

R46 you mean Marjorie Man.

In 1997, Movieline magazine did a 30th Anniversary retrospective of "The Glass Slipper" for their "Bad Movies We Love" feature. Liz Renay revealed that Mamie held up production because she feared the lesbian scenes would tarnish her reputation. To which the ever outspoken Liz quipped, "Oh, honey, that ship sailed a [italic]long[/italic] time ago!" Thus sparking a heated feud between the two blonde bombshells.

Sorry, "The Black Slipper." Although, come to think of it, Mamie would've made a great Cinderella.

Agnes Moorehead and Ida Lupino playing the oldest cell mates who give loving advice to MVD is the highlight for me. They bring it!

Does anyone have the Criterion blu-ray? Are the special features any good?

r92: On the Blu-Ray, there's further fuzzy and staticky footage of Crawford's last public appearance (seen in part at the link). We hear more about "Trog 2," which Crawford was about to fly to Europe to do. We learn she was trying to recruit her friend , Michael VOLE-BLACHHKT to get into the troglodyte suit. Rosalind Russell would have played Trog's mommy, with some tips from Kim Stanley's "Planet of the Apes" makeup artist.

Whoopsie: I meant Kim Hunter.

I'll be at the WINTER Garden!

I heard tell of some drag queens in the '90s doing a word-for-word underground stage version at Dixon Place.

Was this the first interracial lesbian kiss in a Hollywood movie? Barbara McNair really let it all hang out once the sixties started to swing?

R97 wasn't a question. I just type in upspeak, ya dig?

Grover Dale

Susannah York

Jay North

Edward Everett Horton

Gary Sandy

Loni Anderson

Helen Lawson

Gwen Verdon

Rod Taylor's chest

BlaSlip

bootleg VHS

Ila Faye

Pamelyn Fucking Ferdin??

You cunts are killin' me. KILLIN' me and I love ya I love ya I love ya.

R71 can rot.

Paula Kelly had not one but two uncredited roles in this film (I guess the budget was really tight!). She was basically an extra -- she played a dancer in the original troupe and if you look fast you can also spot her as an inmate in the riot scene (with a wig, I guess to distinguish her from the dancer part LOL).

She turned out OK though...two years later she would film Sweet Charity.

Surprised no one has mentioned Rula Lenska's brief appearance as an aspiring hoofer.

Surprised no one has mentioned Rula Lenska's brief appearance as an aspiring hoofer.

THE BLACK SLIPPER played in heavy rotation in military base theaters during the Vietnam era. MPs, armed with flashlights, roamed the aisles and bathrooms to deter audience members from jacking off during and after Mamie's nude scenes.

And I have no idea why that posted twice.

Just don't ever mention Rula Lenska's name in front of Pia Zadora, especially in reference to this film!

Bit of trivia: this is the only film in which Veronica and Angela Cartwright appear together. The flashback was tacked on while Jameson was trying to sign the sisters for what was to be her next film, Rosemary for Remembrance. Allegedly Bob Aldrich read the script and huffed, "It's The Parent Trap meets The Bad Seed!" Which I think sounds fabulous! Shame it was never made.

A cast of thousands!

Sounds racist to me

So weird. I can't find anything about this anywhere. And none of the actors listed here have The Black Slipper listed in their credits. Is it so bad everyone had it scrubbed off the internet?

[quote]Was this the first interracial lesbian kiss in a Hollywood movie? Barbara McNair really let it all hang out once the sixties started to swing?

And with Lotte Lenya, no less! (Or should I say "lez"?)

[quote]it was Helen Shapiro who sang the theme song, "Bars Around My Heart."

James Bond composers David Arnold and Don Black told [italic]Melody Maker[/italic] that "Bars Around My Heart" was their inspiration for Garbage's "The World Is Not Enough."

OMG, TCM is showing the uncensored version where Mamie strips down in the prison lingerie factory!

A hot three way with her, Ray Danton, and Chad Everett was a highlight, especially the DP of Chad.

A young Beth Howland played Mousie, the put-upon little waif in Cell Block B. Most of her scenes were cut because her "relationship" at the hands of the beefy matron was deemed questionable.

Actually, they were cut because there was nothing questionable about that relationship.

Diana Dors and Jayne were originally slated to costar with Mamie as a triple choreographer threat until alas, the truck, then Crawford swooped in to spirit Diana back overseas to Berserk!

There was quite a big lawsuit connected to this production, as Cleo Moore believed she had the lead role of Diamond Dilly right up till shooting began. IIRC one of the producers had promised her a role as part of their divorce settlement...but then when she saw the usherette uniform for one of the bit parts at her fitting, she freaked.

The case was later thrown out on a technicality.

R116, to replace Mamie, Diana, and Jayne, they cast 8-foot Beverly Michaels.

Frances Bavier was startingly cast against type as Mousie's elderbutch, the brush-cut "Uncle Gertrude."